


Burdens Shared

by zelda_addict



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alcohol, Dubious Morality, Flashbacks, Gen, Lotor Was Definitely Not Hugged Enough as a Child, Psychological Warfare, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, Subtext All Over the Place But Nothing Overt, but subtle - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 06:16:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9980024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zelda_addict/pseuds/zelda_addict
Summary: In the wake of the battle with Zarkon, a new enemy appears. The mysterious Prince Lotor is arrogant, and his methods differ a bit from his father’s, but that doesn’t mean he’s any less dangerous.Shiro discovers he has met the prince before, in the year he can’t remember. As the memories begin to return, Shiro is surprised by what they reveal.Team Voltron must face down both the Galra under new command and their own insecurities if they wish to be victorious.





	

**Author's Note:**

> All of this is bound to be completely moot after they release season three, but as a Lotor fan, I am far too impatient to wait. I’ve found him to be a less one-dimensionally evil character than his father in the eighties series. That being said, he is not a nice person. I really want him to play both sides because he hates Zarkon as much as anyone, but he’s convinced himself he can’t ever be “good.”
> 
> Also, fair warning, if you read this, and you like it, and you think, “I’ll go check out the author’s other stuff!” you may be in for a shock. This is my only work in this fandom at this time on this site, and while a few of my other pieces are relatively tame, they are all claims of previously anonymous works from various comment memes, and tend to be kinky. Nothing at all like this piece. If you complain, I will ignore you.
> 
> Similarly, if you’ve read my other stuff and went, “Ooh! Something new!” This is probably not what you were expecting.
> 
> Also also, I will not update regularly because I write sporadically and slowly. Hold not thy breath.

“You think it’s easier   
To put your finger on the trouble   
When the trouble is you  
And you think it’s easier   
To know your own tricks  
Well, it’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do”  
-U2, The Troubles

 

Shiro must have passed out after they defeated Zarkon’s super armor because he found himself awakening from a blackness he had only ever experienced previously from overexertion, injury, and the one memorable time a friend had convinced him to drink heavily. His head throbbed, but he did his best to take in his surroundings.

The first thing he noticed was that he was no longer in the Black Lion’s cockpit. He couldn’t feel his connection to the lion at all, which indicated he was far away from it.

Equally alarming, he was being half-carried, half-dragged down the disturbingly familiar hallway of a Galra warship. He tried to pull away, and the figure supporting him huffed in annoyance.

“Fully awake, are you? You’re not really in any state to fight me--not with that arm shorted out like it is.”

Two more realizations bombarded Shiro at once. First, his cybernetic arm was indeed hanging limp and unresponsive, nothing but a heavy weight that occasionally sparked fitfully and emitted wisps of smoke. Second, the other man’s voice was familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

They paused outside a door, and the stranger opened it with a palm scan. His hand was purple and clawed like all the Galra soldiers. Shiro took the pause in motion as a chance to observe the rest of him. He was about a half a head taller than Shiro, which put him a bit shorter than most of the other Galra, and his face was hidden behind his helmet’s dark visor.

The room appeared to be some kind of dormitory chamber, with a single bed in one of the far corners and a desk and chair against the opposite wall. A second chair sat next to a small dresser. The Galra deposited Shiro none too gently in the chair at the desk and retrieved the second chair before he had a chance to think about a second escape attempt.

“This will be a lot easier if you cooperate,” the Galra advised as he pulled the useless cybernetic arm onto the desk surface.

“Are you with the Blade of Marmora?” Shiro asked the stranger who, always keeping one hand on his prisoner, rummaged through one of the desk drawers and retrieved a small tool kit.

The Galra gave a short bark of a laugh. “No, but not for want of trying on my part. They wouldn’t have me--too big a risk they said.” With a quick prod of a tool Shiro didn’t recognize, a panel in the arm opened. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to focus on my work.”

~~~~~

Back at the castle ship, Shiro’s absence had created a panic. Kolivan and Slav stood on the sidelines and watched the chaos.

“What if the Galra have him again?” Hunk moaned. “They know we can’t form Voltron without him!”

“So we rescue him!” Lance declared. “Zarkon’s down, right? It’s the best time for us to take the fight to them!”

“It could be a trap,” Pidge reasoned. “We probably shouldn’t walk right into it. _Again._ ”

“I can scan for the lions,” Allura mused, wringing her hands. “Maybe I could try scanning for a paladin?”

Amidst all the uproar, Keith stood quietly against the wall, eyes fixed firmly upon the floor. In a lull of all the noise, he mumbled, “A paladin as in Shiro, or someone to replace him?”

The room went suddenly very quiet.

“What did you just say?” Lance asked accusingly, eyes narrowed.

“We’ve all assumed he was taken,” Keith answered, still refusing to look at the others, “but what if he just decided to go?”

“Why would he do that?” Hunk asked with a frown.

“He made a big deal about me not leaving,” Pidge agreed. “He’d have to be a total hypocrite to just walk away.”

“Yeah!” Lance chimed in. “He would’ve told us what he was planning, not that I believe he would leave.”

Allura cocked her head to one side, considering the Red Paladin. “Has he said something to you, Keith?”

Keith nodded. “When the wormhole failed, and we were stranded together, he was injured, and he thought he might not make it.”

“What did he say?” Hunk asked, although it didn’t sound as though he really wanted to know.

“He said he wanted me to lead Voltron.”

Lance snorted. “Well, isn’t that convenient? Shiro disappears mysteriously and just happened to tell you--and only you--he wants you to take over?”

“No,” Keith snarled, finally looking up from the ground, “it’s _not_ convenient. I know I have trouble keeping a clear head, and I told him I didn’t want it! It hasn’t been the only time he said it, either.”

“Black Lion probably wouldn’t let you fly it, anyway.”

“But it did,” Keith admitted. “I thought it was just because we needed to save Shiro from these creatures on that planet, but maybe-”

“ _Ha!_ So much for not wanting it!” Lance accused.

“That is enough of _that._ ” Coran had not shouted, but the room went still. Allura’s advisor was not often completely serious, but when he was, he had a way of commanding respect. “If the past has shown us anything, it’s that in times like these, we need to pull together, not apart.”

Everyone filtered from the room slowly and silently after that.

~~~~~

Shiro watched the stranger work in quiet fascination. Initially, there was a lot of prodding and poking, and he began to worry this very odd Galra was doing more harm than good. After a while, though, the man made a triumphant noise and pulled a small crystal from inside the arm.

It was the same sickly magenta as the crystal Sendak had used when the castle ship was hijacked, though much smaller, and clearly damaged.

The Galra rooted around in the desk drawer some more and retrieved a new crystal, but this one was a vibrant blue.

Tired of both the silence and feeling clueless, Shiro asked, “Why doesn’t that one look like other Galra crystals I’ve seen?” The stranger didn’t answer. “Are you some kind of engineer or mechanic? Why are you helping me?”

The stranger set the crystal down with a put-upon sigh. “I ought to just knock you unconscious again. It would be less annoying.” He drummed his fingers for a moment. “I’ve heard rumors you remember very little of your year with the empire. Is that true?”

“If I answer your question, will you answer mine?”

“You don’t need to answer mine,” the Galra retorted. “It’s pretty obvious you have no idea who I am.”

A panel on the wall beeped, but the screen next to it remained dark. The Galra soldier help a finger up to his helmet visor, warning Shiro to remain silent.

“Speak,” he addressed the panel sharply.

“Are you aware your video feed has been disabled, sir?”

“I’m the one who disabled it. What do you want?”

“Central Command is insistent that you report to Haggar as soon as possible.”

“That witch does not command me. I will make my way there at my convenience. _Vrepit sa._ ”

“ _Vrepit sa!_ ”

As the room fell silent again, Shiro asked, “Who are you?”

“I’m certain we’ll be formally reintroduced soon enough. Now, I need to finish up here before that hag sends one of her druids to escort me.”

Shiro started to ask another question, and the Galra sighed again. Shiro could imagine him rolling his eyes behind the dark visor. “Sit still. I’ll talk and work at the same time.”

He began to carefully install the new power crystal. “This crystal is in raw, unaltered form,” he explained. “All crystals in use by the Galra Empire are magically enhanced with additional quintessence. Dark magic, however, corrupts the structure, altering the appearance. While technically compatible with both Galra and Altean technologies, a big enough surge of Altean power will destroy a small Galra crystal like that one. I expect using the Black Bayard shorted out your arm.”

“How did you know about-”

“Voltron is an obsession of Emperor Zarkon,” the Galra cut Shiro off mid-question. “I have researched the legends extensively myself. You formed the Blazing Sword in battle, and that can only be done with the Black Bayard. I saw it over the vid feeds when the hub’s power came back online.” He paused for a moment.

“I became... _concerned_ when the Black Lion appeared to be drifting unguided. I initially intended only to check if you were alive, but when I saw the state of your arm...”

“Why do you even care?” Shiro wondered aloud.

“Why am I fixing the arm? Two reasons. Firstly, I have a great deal of respect for the Champion I knew. Leaving such a clear disadvantage in place does not sit well with me. Secondly, the uncorrupted crystal will make using your arm as a universal access point to our systems more difficult, so it all evens out.

“I am officially neither an engineer nor a mechanic, but a complete lack of companionship throughout my childhood and adolescence left me a great deal of time for study and physical training. We have no time for further questions.” The stranger snapped the access door to the arm closed again.

Shiro had felt the arm come back online only moments before. “You’re right,” he agreed, making a fist a few times and rotating the forearm as though simply testing the performance. “I have places to be.”

Shiro lunged forward out of his chair, dragging the Galra soldier to the floor. He held his charged hand to the stranger’s throat as he knelt over him, absently noting the hand now glowed blue.

The Galra chuckled and clicked his tongue. “How ungrateful.” 

He knocked Shiro’s hand aside, completely ignoring the burn it left as it grazed his neck. He sat up suddenly, knocking his helmet against Shiro’s, stunning him. While the paladin tried to recover his bearings, the stranger flipped them over and pinned Shiro to the ground with a knee in his lower back, the recently repaired arm twisted backward in an armlock.

“Behave,” the Galra taunted, “or I’ll reconsider returning you to your friends.”

Shiro was speechless for a moment. “You’re going to take me back?”

“A win because the other side forfeits is a hollow victory,” the Galra explained as he dragged Shiro roughly to his feet. “When I win, people will talk anyway, but they’ll have no proof for claims that Voltron only lost because they were short a paladin, or that most of the work was already done by Zarkon. Now move.”

Shiro allowed himself to be steered back down the halls of the ship to another door that had to be opened by a palm scan. This one, however, was a large storage bay containing a small ship and something that looked very much like the station Allura used to open wormholes. Behind it was a device that looked like a much smaller version of the castle ship’s lens-stone apparatus and beam generator.

“Is that what I think it is?” Shiro dared to ask.

“You’ll have to thank your Red and Yellow Paladin friends for me for the assistance in retrieving the scaultrite I needed. I’ve only used it once before.”

Shiro realized that this small wormhole device was how the Galra had plucked him from the cockpit of his lion after the battle. It appeared Alteans were no longer the only ones using teludav technology.

With a curt command for Shiro to stay where he was placed, the Galra moved into position at the station. He took a deep breath, and where Allura seemed to require only a little effort for smaller wormholes, it was obviously taking a great deal of focus on the part of Shiro’s Galra captor, and the resulting wormhole was no more than ten feet away and scarcely large enough for a person to step through without stooping.

“It won’t stay open very long,” the Galra informed him, strain evident in his voice. He was, however, able to step away from the controls while the portal remained open. “After you.”

~~~~~

Keith finished off the level three Gladiator with a vicious stabbing thrust and took a moment to catch his breath. The training deck had become a sort of sanctuary for the Red Paladin, as most of the others avoided it unless a training session was required. He was debating bumping up the level and starting the program again when he heard the deck’s main door slide open behind him.

“Clearly, channeling your anger issues is a good idea, but don’t you ever relax?”

Keith covered his surprise before turning around, fixing a scowl in place instead. “Come to yell at me again?”

Lance opened his mouth, no doubt to make a retort only the Blue Paladin himself would find witty, but he closed it again and took a moment to calm himself. “No, actually. I came to apologize for earlier.”

“Oh, really?” Keith asked skeptically. 

“Look, I come from a really big, really close family, okay?” Lance leaned against the wall and hunched forward, crossing his arms. He was clearly uncomfortable sharing this much, but he continued. “Obviously, they’re not here, and I have no way to talk to them. The Team has become a substitute for them, you know? I thought we all felt that way about it, but where I come from, you never give up on your family, no matter what. So, when you seemed to be all casual about Shiro just up and abandoning us, I got mad.”

Keith wanted to remain angry because the anger was familiar and safe, but he also knew it was destructive. It had ruined a lot of things for him. “I guess I can understand that,” he begrudged. “My family on Earth wasn’t like yours. We were away from each other a lot. Depending on other people doesn’t come very naturally to me.”

There was an awkward silence.

“Anyway,” Lance broke it, “I was thinking about earlier, and I realized something. You were the only one of us who really stayed calm-”

“I wasn’t,” Keith interjected. “I was freaking out, too--just on the inside, I guess.”

“My _point,_ ” Lance continued, glaring at him for the interruption, “is that a leader needs to at least _pretend_ to keep it together. If it takes us a while to find Shiro, I guess we could do worse than letting you take over command.”

The door slid open again to reveal a surprised Hunk and Pidge.

“Uh...hi?” Hunk offered. “We were totally _not_ listening in on your conversation.”

“Nice, Hunk.” Pidge rolled her eyes and socked him in the arm.

“I bumped the button by accident!”

“Did they put you up to this?” Keith accused Lance.

“ _What?_ No! I came here on my own.”

“I was going to tell you to just ignore Lance like usual,” Pidge offered.

“I was going to tell you that I made us all some comfort food,” Hunk added. “Well, what passes for comfort food around here.”

Suddenly, an alarm began to blare, and they all ran to the bridge.

“What’s going on?” they chorused.

“There’s an intruder in the castle!” Coran exclaimed, staring at a display in alarm.

“Somehow,” Allura explained further, “a small wormhole opened in the main hangar.”

“A wormhole opened up _inside_ the ship?” Lance gawked.

“That’s where the Black Lion is!” Keith took off at a run, the others close behind.

They all tumbled through the door to see a familiar figure had already emerged from the wormhole.

“Shiro!” each cried in turn. Then another form stepped through.

“You!” Keith exclaimed in surprise, scowling at the Galra soldier. “So this is why you wanted the scaultrite!”

The Galra had frozen in place but not because of Keith’s remark. He appeared to be looking at Allura, though it was hard to tell behind the dark visor.

“Historical accounts do not do you justice, Princess,” he declared. Kolivan tensed when he spoke, but said nothing.

“What are you doing in my castle?” Allura accused.

“I am merely returning the paladin I borrowed. He’s in better condition than I found him, by the way. You’re welcome.” He gave a stiff bow and a mocking salute before stepping backward through the wormhole, which closed behind him.

“Who was that guy?” Lance wondered.

“I’m not sure,” Shiro answered, “but we’ve apparently met before.”

“Very interesting,” Kolivan finally spoke, “because if I’m not mistaken, that was Prince Lotor.”


End file.
